The move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by the US president Donald Trump is unfair, unjust and oblivious to the historical facts and also to the goal of reconciliation and peace in the Middle East, the National Conference president Farooq Abdullah said on Thursday and strongly condemned the “arbitrary announcement.”

In a controversial move, Trump Wednesday officially declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, drawing angry reactions from a number of world countries.

In a statement, Farooq said that the move has hurt the sentiments of Muslims all over the world and made the goals of cooperation and stability farther and harder to achieve.

“This announcement is in contradiction to history and the sentiments of millions of Muslims across the world, including India. At a time when the world is grappling with instability and hostility, especially in the Middle East, an arbitrary announcement of this nature is fraught with the risk of alienating people and adding to the widespread sense of injustice,” he said.

The global community is obligated to deliver justice to the people of Palestine and no responsible power should take any step that would hurt sentiments centered around historical disputes and injustices, he said.

“The government of India is also obligated to strongly and unambiguously oppose this move in line with the country’s historical foreign policy stand that is committed to the people of Palestine in their quest for justice and peaceful existence and is also pivoted on the policy of non-alignment and objectivity,” Farooq said.

The condemnation from the central government should be unequivocal and we should take a stand in consonance with our values and our place in the comity of nations, he said.

“India has traditionally and consistently supported the cause of the Palestinian people, and our foreign policy has always noted East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state. A failure of the Modi government to strongly reiterate this commitment and stand would be a great disservice to our country’s independent foreign policy goals and our commitments at the global stage,” he said.

Meanwhile, former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday termed the government of India’s stand on US recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “a wishy-washy drivel.” He said that such a move in the past would have drawn strong condemnation from India.

“There was a time when the Trump Administration move to overturn decades of US policy WRT #Jersualem would have provoked a strong condemnation from India,” he said. “Now all you get is some wishy-washy drivel about India’s position determined by our self interest and not what other countries do. There was a time India stood for something.”